Death and Justice
by Arashi Leonhart
Summary: On board a ship in the Sea of Japan, Kiritsugu Emiya and Kiri Nanaya come across a ceremony of violence. Edited for Fate/Extra CCC info.
1. Chapter 1

Death and Justice

Part I

* * *

><p><em>April, 1981.<em>

The bustle of people on board the cruise liner was not the uncomfortable situation it could have been for Kiritsugu Emiya. Though a person of sufficient paranoia would otherwise be upset by the swarm-like movement of the crowd—and Kiritsugu was certainly aware of the dangers present—the people about gave him a marginally wider berth than they might the average person. It had little to do with appearances, since he dressed like any other young businessman might, and was more a product of the way he carried himself, somehow both a head taller than everybody else, yet slouched in and protective in a fashion that demanded crowds angle away when passing by.

In the two days since leaving harbor, Kiritsugu had carefully mapped each and every location on the boat he could, had broken into crew-only sections when nobody was about, had a simple tracking device put on a mouse-turned-temporary familiar to gain some insight on locations he could not reach. He made sure to copy the passenger manifest, had marked the targets, stalked out their rooms and upon seeing each one dedicated their most recent appearance to memory.

Now, he had to wait. With the third night approaching, the ship would be almost halfway between the Korean peninsula and their destination in Japan. If his targets were to do anything, Kiritsugu thought it would be soon, with the ship as far from help as possible besides the errant fishing vessel.

When dinner began that evening, Kiritsugu moved to the starboard side of the ship, away from the majority of people either in the main dining halls or at the stern of the ship watching the golden lights of sunset dip below the horizon line. He lit a cigarette and waited, staring up at the decks above, watching shadows pass beyond windows and listening to the footsteps of people as they wandered about his level. Though the ship was far from full capacity, it was enough of a crowd that he would have to be careful how he went about this.

He had to wait until he was down to the filter of his second before the chance came. Though the sky had not completely gone dark, he could detect no figures in the windows above and no other passengers wandered his side of the ship.

After dropping his cigarette overboard, he calmly knelt before the nearest exterior hull plate and pulled out the radio beacon he had in his pocket. Where the deck met the hull, he set the beacon in place, thumbed it on, then pulled out duct tape and covered the device.

Hopefully, none of the crew would find this particularly out of place if they stumbled across it. He had made sure to place it in the most unobtrusive spot, though, so he assumed it would be safe for the six or so hours it would be necessary. If he had better equipment, he would not have needed for it to leave his cabin, but the ship's older structure just caused too much interference for a handheld device.

When he was finished, he replaced the tape back into his jacket pocket and glanced around one final time. With nobody in sight, he pulled another cigarette out and lit it, took a drag, and waited.

* * *

><p>"Sold, for 23,500 yen!"<p>

The exclamation and tap from the auctioneer's gavel woke Kiri Nanaya. Yawning, the young man glanced around, caught sight of the clock across the dining hall. It was ten in the evening, a whole two hours since Kiri had finished his dinner and been lulled by the conversing people and faint sense of movement from the ship. Now, with dinner over, the night's entertainment seemed to have moved in—an auction of antiques for the various bourgeoisie on the trip, many of which seemed to have come for this exact purpose.

Kiri was simply passing through. His last target had ties to the mainland, so the Organization had sent him to deal with it. With ties to transportation by air, Kiri had decided to board a ship, travel at a leisurely pace, then return by the same means. Too, it was just something that went against every bone in his body, to travel on something that he had little control over if something—be it accident or sabotage—were to happen.

No point in killing all of the dangers on board an aircraft if it meant nobody was around to fly the thing, after all.

"Next up for auction, a Boxer Rebellion-era vase…"

It also meant that Kiri had to find things to keep his mind occupied in the meantime. The auction had a variety of antiques to bid on, and while Kiri had little interest in old, decorative things, he had happened upon a catalog for the event earlier in the day and thumbed through it briefly. One thing in particular had caught his eye—something he felt only someone who stood by death frequently truly could appreciate.

So he had staked out a place in the auction, waited around with nothing better to do. The first item was nothing of interest, some kind of painting, and Kiri only absently paid any mind now that he realized the show had begun. The item he was interested in was off to the side on a table amidst other antiques, and he assumed they were going to start with smaller or less valuable items and work their way upward. Even the others around him—mainly those of middle age or approaching it, all at least somewhat nicely dressed in casual suits or formal dining wear—seemed less impressed with the current items, the tone of the audience generally subdued and unexcited. Not what Kiri expected from an auction, though he had never been to one before.

Of course, the auctioneer, a man that resembled a frog more than a man, was not helping generate excitement. His neck wobbled like a deflated balloon as he spoke. "The bidding begins at 10,000 yen."

Kiri settled back into his seat, his attention focused on his prize. At least it gave him something to occupy his mind for a little while.

* * *

><p>A burst of static on the second radio he kept in his pocket brought Kiritsugu's attention back into focus. He checked the time: 22:42 local. Right on schedule.<p>

He moved to the stern of the ship, listening in on the footsteps of the other passengers as they passed by, glancing up at windows as he caught movement beyond, keeping half his attention on the various things that could go wrong at any moment.

From the rear of the lower exterior deck, a flight of stairs led to a small diving station where guests could explore the seas when the ship was not in motion. Though locked off, Kiritsugu merely vaulted the door's archway after making sure none witnessed his little jaunt. To the other side, the station had a small powered raft docked to the station, black in color and in the dim moonlight hard to distinguish from the rolling waves beyond.

"Any trouble?" Kiritsugu asked as he stepped over onto the smaller ship.

Maiya gave a terse shake of the head. The dark haired girl wore black as well, making her an invisible backdrop to the invisible ship she had come in on. "None. Our estimation of the ship's route and timing was very accurate."

He nodded. Before the ship had set out from port, he had reviewed the previous routes this ship and captain had taken before on the same leg of this trip. Like many private airliners, it was required for passenger vessels like this to present travel plans, a trait particularly important to the time-conscious Asian countries of the area. Though it was not exact moment-to-moment coordinates for the journey as a whole, it did give a set of predictable times by which to plan Maiya's appearance.

So the girl had taken a private ship, brought it out to within a kilometer of the intended path of the cruise liner, and had waited to transfer over under cover of darkness.

"How does it look inside?" Maiya asked, peering out over his shoulder to the ship. She regarded it with a suspicious eye, like she could not trust the serene exterior.

"Quiet, for the most part. A number of white-collars are taking the scenic route from the mainland." Kiritsugu decided the next break from work they had, he would take her on board such a ship in case this sort of situation arose again—they could then reverse positions if necessary. He motioned to the cases she had laid out. "Hand those here."

She handed him two of the three suitcases: the larger one with the PSG-1 rifle, the small one with his Contender. The larger case neatly dwarfed Maiya's teenage stature, though she gave no sign of struggle. "It is adjusted for 150 meters."

Kiritsugu nodded. The ship itself was not quite 200 meters, so zeroing in at a greater range would be detrimental, unless he had to start firing at lifeboats. "All eleven of this little organization are on board. When you are finished setting charges, you should return to the harbor and be ready to receive any stragglers that might escape." He handed her the files he had made, pictures he had taken. "These are the targets."

"Would it not be prudent to destroy the entire ship?"

He nodded. "What they are doing is specific and apparently location-sensitive. I want to know what they're up to first, so others don't just come along and finish what they've started."

"Understood."

* * *

><p>"We will take a short intermission." The auctioneer motioned with his hands in a florid manner, as if the gavel was an orchestra conductor's wand. "A snack bar has been set up on the far wall if you wish to partake of some refreshments. You may also view the remaining items up for bid, though we ask that you do not touch them."<p>

Of course they would not put the knife up to auction until near the end.

Kiri waited, halfway paying attention to the auction table, halfway considering the various actions he had taken on his last assignment. Both were mind-numbing, as he had done the latter many times since boarding the ship, while the drone of the people as they wandered tables, no matter how excited people may be, was mundane in utility. He ultimately had little else to do—in two days, he had covered all public locations of the ship and, when nobody was looking, had done a few practice leaps and runs along the interior, his mind playing out like a simulator the various situations that could present themselves in this location. It was something he did regularly whenever he found a new and interesting location, one of the things that made him so skilled at killing things: he always had new challenges, always had new things to teach himself, always had new ways of executing a target.

He knew many things about this ship, and many more things about using it as a weapon.

Sometimes, Kiri wished it were a more effective weapon at passing time.

Drinks were passed out at the tables as people moved about, some going for the table of refreshments—appetizers and small desserts from what Kiri could tell—while others went to use the restrooms. A handful moved among the auction items, bending down to appraise an old koto or carefully examining a jade carving. Kiri fiddled with his drink, running a finger along the rim and listening to the moaning noise it made amidst the general chatter in the room.

He then paused, brought his finger up to his nose.

It was not what you would call a sixth sense, not some kind of supernatural ability. Kiri simply had a wealth of experience well beyond the norm for his short life. He had studied poisons and venoms in that time, taught by a local practitioner of Eastern medicines in Misaki, and while he did not employ any, he knew the signs to look for on the vague notion of countering their effects if they were ever used against him. It came in handy every once in a while, against old-fashioned types that preferred ancient weapons of war and subterfuge to the modern convenience of a gun or explosive.

He simply knew to take all things with a grain of salt, to make the most casual of observations into tried and true weapons of knowledge and awareness.

Kiri sniffed the glass, then glanced about for the servers. This was not some ordinary beverage. He detected a hint of soporific additives along the salted rim of the glass.

Across the room to where the waiters and waitresses accessed the dining hall from the kitchens, Kiri spotted three men speaking with the last waitress as she took an empty serving tray back to her station. The men appeared as normal as anyone else, well dressed in casual suits, one of them with his shirttails hanging loosely as if he had become irritated by the stuffiness over the course of the night. They appeared to make small talk to the waitress, who was by all accounts attractive—

But as Kiri peered closer, the waves of their thoughts came into view, and he could see it.

The woman was average in every way. Her thoughts had nothing Kiri had not seen millions of times over, their presence pale and transparent. There was no outcome from her thoughts and existence that was outside of what could be called "through water rather than mist normal" to a human life.

But the men…

The thoughts wavering through his sight around these men had Kiri on his feet. They were different, stronger, more tangible, like running a hand through water rather than mist—

And the flow had color, a glimmer of golden light.

Dead Apostles. Blood-sucking demons from beyond the grave. Not the kind of demons he regularly engaged, the half-breeds and blood-suckers of Eastern origin, of mating with inhuman things. These were demons from beyond the borders of Japan, of the Eastern mainland, creatures that supposedly severed from the laws of the Western God.

What they were doing here Kiri could not tell. The fact that he only noticed them now also stood out; it meant that, amidst these masses of people, they had not ventured out regularly; Kiri might have detected them earlier. Unless he had the inclination to concentrate, his Jougan did not regularly perceive beyond regular sight, past walls and bulkheads. Now, suddenly, there were two inhuman beings before him—something that could not be just coincidence.

The drinks had something added to them—not to the liquid itself, but to the glasses. The waitress had no knowledge of it, but these demons, these inhuman things, they were watching. They were checking that things had been distributed.

They were up to something.

Though not a part of his mission, not ordered by the Organization, it would do him no good to simply ignore it. Not only could it mean trouble for him and those on the ship, but if those he worked for caught wind that he could have prevented some kind of atrocity, it might move the Nanaya into unfavorable territory.

Of course, they could also just blame him for acting out when he was not ordered to do anything as well. But it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

After the waitress had gone back into the kitchens, the men conversed among themselves. To any other observer, it might have looked like one had flirted with the waitress and been shot down, and now the three were planning on future actions. Or that one had flirted with the waitress and been accepted, and now the three were planning on future actions. Two of them nodded, then left the third to cross the room and head to the hallway that led to the rest of the ship. The third, the one with his clothing hanging out, stayed and watched.

With too many witnesses here—though he had the distinct feeling they would not be witnesses in the minutes and hours that followed—Kiri decided to pursue the two that were leaving.

When the Apostles were past the dining hall and heading further up the ship, Kiri excused himself from the table he lounged at and followed after them at an unhurried pace.

The men did not hurry about either, leisurely making their way up to the end of one deck, finding a stairwell down to another, talking amidst themselves the entire time. Without the presence of the Jougan, Kiri was certain they would not seem at all out-of-place to him, no other sense that they were anything other than normal people chatting about anything that came to mind—the weather, recent news, home life, sporting events, politics. One cracked a joke at the expense of his boss, the other followed up with an insult to his companion's parentage.

When they got off the stairs and turned a corner down into a passenger deck, Kiri paused midway down the stairs. He set his gaze at the corner they had not ventured down, down toward the rear of the ship, and he detected three more discolored presences waiting beyond, their thoughts and perceptions turned toward the stairwell he stood in—

Watching for a tail.

Now Kiri was _certain_ something was up. Three beings—at this point, he thought they were Dead Apostles—loitering in the halls while two more moved about the ship, apparently to check the status of things within the dining area. Something was on the verge of starting if it had not already beyond his awareness, and Kiri knew that, inevitably, he would be drawn in.

Kiri believed in a kind of destiny, as it were. One that did not suffer coincidence.

Instead of responding and reacting, however, he decided he should dictate the pace by which things occurred.

He finished his descent of the stairs, turned the corner to where the three inhuman men waited, and purposefully strode up to meet them.

They had been waiting in a semi-lounging state, leaning against the walls, casually staggered along the hall. When they spotted him, all three moved to attention, like bouncers suddenly aware that their job was about to come to play, denying trespassers from entry. Three men, blood-sucking demons, the second one of the three the largest, the closest one watching with unnerving eyes. "This is the wro—" the first one started.

Kiri stepped up his pace. In the narrow corridor, he darted to one side, jumping into the air and rebounding off the wall. He leapt clear over the speaking man and came down onto the larger second with his elbow, striking just above the collarbone. As the big man toppled forward, Kiri brought his leg up, smashing his knee into an extended chin. The blow snapped the man's head back, his neck breaking.

The man he had bypassed spun and the third man moved on his heels, neither one stumbling, though neither reacted on the front foot to this sudden terror. Their thoughts, however, did turn violently dangerous in sense, and Kiri knew then, for certain, that these were vampires of the Dead Apostle kind.

One second.

Kiri felt the intention of the one he had bypassed, ducked under a right hook that would have been too fast for a mortal man caught unawares. The attack overstepped and Kiri planted himself between the man's wide feet, reached up over his shoulder, and grabbed the attacker's ears. With a violent pull, Kiri tumbled the man over his shoulders and into the falling body of the second while ripping the skin and cartilage like a torture technician. The man wailed and thrashed through the air, briefly filling the hallway with convulsing bodies.

That obscured Kiri from the third man's view, even as the man went for a flash of metal beneath his jacket.

Two seconds.

Kiri pulled the emergency fire extinguisher from its hangar while simultaneously running for the wall opposite from the device. He took two steps on the deck, two more along the wall at an angle, then rebounded completely inverted from the ceiling above the heads of his targets. The momentary distraction of twitching bodies and bleeding heads distracted the third man long enough for Kiri to come down swinging, smashing the red canister into the back of the last man's skull.

As Kiri flipped forward and landed on his feet, the three bodies all simultaneously crashed into one another, tangling limbs and broken bodies. They fell into a heap, the third man on the bottom, his head caved in at the crown, the middle man with his neck at an unnatural angle. The first howled at the pain of his missing ears and the unnatural angle he had fallen at, but only momentarily before Kiri swung the extinguisher around by its small hose and smashed the end into the man's windpipe.

Three seconds.

Kiri decided he was two seconds too slow, his mind not even into the hunt yet. Absently, he brought his foot down onto all three of the men's throats, one at a time, crushing their necks until their spines protruded from torn skin. With their slower reaction times, he assumed these were not the kind of blood-suckers that could regenerate his initial killing blows, but he felt in this situation it might be necessary. He did not know firsthand as much about Dead Apostles as he did the half-breeds within the borders of Japan and other Asian countries.

Momentarily, Kiri peered down the hall where the two he initially pursued had gone, though they were out of sight. He focused all of his attention in that direction, however, and could detect the faintest traces of their abnormal colors, the sign of their presences further down and with walls blocking the way.

A true hunt was on.

Turning his attention back to the bodies, Kiri considered his options. The third man had tried to pull a knife—a K-bar like some militaries used—that Kiri removed from his jacket and tucked into his belt at his back. He thought of returning to his quarters for his own weapons, but decided that the longer these dead Dead Apostles were missing, the greater time his newfound enemies would have to pull something.

In fact, he decided, the general disruption of the ship would probably come before then when someone came across three dead bodies. Momentarily considering his next plan of action, Kiri then went for the emergency alarm next to where he had pulled the fire extinguisher and pulled the lever.

Dig in deeper or make a move—time to see which Kiri's new prey would choose.

* * *

><p>The fire alarm rang, and Kiritsugu cursed at the timing. He stepped back onto the diving station and up to the gate, peered up to the main decks of the ship. More lights were on in the windows above, shadows running past.<p>

In place, Kiritsugu crouched down and opened the case containing his Contender. He set one of the Origin Bullets into position, pocketing a handful of others. "Change of plans. Set up at the bow of the ship and make it appear as if we've been hit by a mine or a torpedo." It was a possibility in the area, between leftover ordinance from World War II and North Korea occasionally taking an aggressive stance on other ships in the area. "Forget the engines and everything else. Then continue to the harbor as planned."

Maiya nodded, already removing the ropes securing her boat to the larger ship. "And you?"

Settling the Contender into his shoulder holster, Kiritsugu hefted the larger rifle case. "I'm going to go make sure they evacuate in an orderly fashion."

* * *

><p>The Apostles all looked up as the alarm blared.<p>

The room was full to capacity. They had arranged for a meeting room to be their exclusive location bereft of cleaning services or other guests. It seated eight comfortably with a long table at the center, three seats to either side lengthwise, one seat at the head and foot. Normally it would be used for business meetings or small presentations, and a double-sided blackboard resided in one corner. Though normally numbers or list and charts might be drawn on its surface, this time it was adorned with a single sign: an odd circular crest with thorny tendrils jutting out from each side. The image was divided along the length by lines, and each section was numbered from one to five.

Below that, four iron capsules sat on the floor, each the size of mid-sized travel luggage.

A fifth capsule rested atop the table amidst blood and bodies. Four bodies lay in various states, one sitting hunched over like he had put his head down and fallen asleep, one more laying on their side atop the table, a third dangling her limbs over the edge. The fourth lay halfway atop the capsule, her blood dripping from an open chest wound into an open hatch on the iron device, like a parody of a mother breastfeeding a child.

Four Apostles stood around the table, one of them standing over the dead woman massaging the body, as if milking her. They all glanced around at the sound of the alarm, then to each other.

"Think something went wrong?" the one standing atop the table asked.

His compatriots all gave various levels of agreement, the one standing behind the hunched-over man saying, "Nothing is coincidence when we've just started this." He grabbed the man beneath the armpits and hauled the body up onto the table along with the others, the man's eyes glazed over. "Finish up with this one while we take the other cases up to the dining room."

As the one atop the table shook the last remaining droplets from the woman's body into his capsule, the other three Apostles went to pick up the remaining iron containers, hefting them as if they were no heavier than pillows. They filed out of the room as the remaining man dropped the woman back out of his way, then picked up the last man. He bent the man's head back at an unnatural angle that brought a faint whimper from the victim, bit into his neck, then settled the body over the iron pod, neck over the opening, and more blood began to pour in.

* * *

><p>Pulling up just ahead of the ship, Maiya braved the frothing waters as they were kicked up by the larger vessel. She pulled up as close as possible, just over an arm's length from the exterior hull, then threw the mine and adhesive onto the surface where it halted like a dead bug hitting a windshield. She repeated the process a meter or so back with another, then tossed a third mine equidistant between the two and some centimeters upward, forming a rough triangle.<p>

Maiya then sped her boat away, back toward her primary ship, pulling out a detonation switch as she did so.


	2. Chapter 2

II

The explosion was something like two trains crashing into one another as thunder sounded overhead. The sudden crack of noise was startling while the low rumble shook the entire ship as if the vessel had run aground.

People shouted in surprise and fear, flinched and startled, grabbed railings and widened feet to keep still as the floor rocked. With the fire alarm blaring, the boom of something loud and powerful, the huge vessel rocking like a much smaller ship, passengers looked around in a panic and crew moved to their stations for further instructions. Some made it to the very front of the ship where smoke began to rise and shouted that something had hit them.

On the bridge, the captain of the ship listened as the crew up front radioed in the situation. "We hit something? We've taken this route a dozen times already, that can't be right."

The crewman on the other side of the radio sounded as frazzled as the white noise his communication made. "A torpedo? The damage looks really bad." Though usually quiet, tensions with North Korea sometimes brought wartime attacks to mind.

"This far south?" The captain shook his head, glanced at the other people on the bridge. Besides the helmsman holding the ship steady and the person handling long-range radio duties, they were looking at him expectantly. "Give me a no-bullshit assessment. Is it salvageable?"

"I don't think so, sir. From what I can tell, we've got a hole as big as my pregnant wife. There's gotta be a swimming pool down in the lower hull already."

The captain sighed. "Then we'll evacuate the ship." He turned to the other members of the bridge. "Radio in distress and head straight for Shimonoseki."

One of the deck officers piped in, looking around nervously. "Sir, shouldn't we head back for Ulsan? We're still slightly closer to it—"

The captain met the deck officer with a hard stare. Had so much not been going on, the alarm still blaring, someone might have noticed the glazed look in the captain's eyes. "No, we get the passengers to their destination. That is all."

Reluctantly, the officers all made to do their duty, either accompanying the captain to alert crew elsewhere, or heading down to the escape craft to prep for the coming journey.

* * *

><p>Kiritsugu set up on the catwalk surrounding the rear exhaust stack where he had a clear view of the entire aft deck and the access to the escape craft. He attached the rifle's bipod as quickly as possible, though he kept all of his attention on the weapon—no use in sniping if his tools malfunctioned on him. Once secure, he set up low on the walkway and loaded a magazine, flicking the safety off.<p>

Through the scope, he watched as people moved about the deck in confusion, no clear direction, some hurrying to their cabins to check up on the others with them, their luggage, or out of the impulse to seek familiar ground. Crew members seemed equally at a loss, with only two or three moving back and forth along the bow deck, checking on the damage from the explosion.

Feedback from the hand radio he had taken sounded off, followed by muffled speech. Kiritsugu could not make out exactly what was being said, having turned down the volume, but he knew the order to abandon ship must have gone out. He had made sure to have met the captain long before the vessel had left port, had planted contingent hypnotic suggestions in the man dependent on the situation. Kiritsugu could now operate on a certain level of certainty of what would unfold before him.

Though he was ready to catch people as they moved toward the rear of the ship, with the announcement, he took a moment to peer up toward the port side of the deck, checking for anomalous reactions—

There, to one side of the hull, partially concealed by a protective awning, four figures. Three were carrying large boxes in their hands, one followed slightly behind.

* * *

><p>The three Dead Apostles swept past Kiri as he waited on the deck above, halfway between the dining hall and where Kiri had killed the men. They wove past panicked passengers and anxious crewmembers, carrying large metal cases the size of a large toolbox, avoiding confused stares by looking purposeful.<p>

Nobody but Kiri would notice the scent of blood on them.

It was not something one could detect easily to begin with. The sea air always lent a slightly salty tinge to the air, thick enough to deter all but the strongest of smells. Kiri could only make it out as they passed him, strong on their clothing despite showing no outward signs of staining. It had either dried up or they had put clothing on over it.

Still, it reeked of the business they had on the ship.

All three paused momentarily to peer out toward the front of the ship where smoke was freely flowing from whatever had hit them. They glanced at one another, then made for the dining hall—where Kiri thought they would complete their job if given the chance.

"Too bad for you that I'm ready now," Kiri said, mostly to himself. After pulling the bodies of the ones he had butchered earlier into an empty room, he had liberated the longest screwdriver he could find from a nearby janitor's closet. Now, he was both into his rhythm and armed. The way he preferred it.

Casually, he strode up after the three men as they turned the corner toward the dining hall. Here, along one side of the cruiser, passengers could view the outside and smell the air, though they could be protected from weather by a glass awning attached to the hull.

Kiri flung the military knife he had taken up toward the awning, rebounding it over the heads of the Apostles as he stepped his pace up. The one closest to Kiri, died before his eyes had even fully journeyed upward to react to the sound—Kiri drove the screwdriver into the top of his head and tripped his legs at the same time, wrenching the impromptu weapon from the man's body as violently as possible.

Even before the first victim had fallen completely, Kiri moved onto the second, who was spinning inhumanly fast toward Kiri's assault, the sound of the knife already discarded. The predictability that Kiri counted on, though, brought him down—with the Apostle carrying the iron container under the right arm, it was only natural for the man to turn in that direction, letting the weight carry him around with centrifugal force. Kiri moved up to his left, circling into the Apostle's blind spot and jabbing the screwdriver into his head from behind the right ear.

At the same time, the Dead Apostle at the front of the line was also turning, though he carried two of the containers and Kiri could not know which way he would move. However, the added weight slowed him fractionally—once again, just enough. The knife Kiri had thrown had hit the awning, rebounded onto the deck, and by the way he had thrown it, rebounded from the floor with just enough energy. It bounded back up right at chest height between the two remaining Apostles, and as Kiri jabbed the screwdriver into the second Apostle, he caught the knife with his left hand and thrust it into the chest of the last target. The man gurgled and dropped the iron cases.

One second.

"Much better," Kiri said, laughing aloud for a moment. A single second was certainly better than three, and even in a location he was not able to perform his acrobatic feats.

Though Kiri had impaled the last one, he was aware that vampires reversed time on wounds to undo the damage wrought. So the assassin first dragged the man over to the railing of the ship and flung him overboard. He then calmly repeated the process of disposing the bodies with the two he had bored holes into, though he felt certain they would be less apt to recovering. Once finished, he regarded the metal pods they had dropped. "Thanks for the handicap. Couldn't have done it without you."

It did not take a genius to construct what they were going to be doing with the cases. The dining hall would have been full of sleeping people, and these vampires were carrying large containers. They were undead creatures who fed on blood—it was not likely that petty theft ranked high on their priorities.

Remembering the man that still remained in the dining hall, Kiri nodded to himself. "Still at least one to go." He frowned, though, as he regarded the screwdriver he had used: it was bent under the strain of being used too violently. "Should have gone back to my room. Too late now, though."

Already, he could hear and feel movement from below—people scurrying about the ship, responding to the announcement of evacuation made a moment ago. Kiri wondered what he would find in the dining hall, if the drugged drinks would have knocked people out already, or if the noise and commotion would defeat anything they had already imbibed.

He rather hoped for the latter. "Disorder gives me the upper hand, at least in this kind of situation. And people are predictable in mayhem like this."

* * *

><p>Kiritsugu watched from the infra-red sight he had mounted atop the regular scope. Dead Apostles, like magi, were prone to emitting greater body heat due to the fact that their very existence was dependent upon the presence of odic energy and magical circuits. The dead that reached a plateau beyond animalistic thought and feeling were special in that way, like finding the one kid in a middle school baseball team with the potential of going all the way to professional athlete. While those that could use what might outright be called "magic" were rarer, all existed on the same premise that their magical force kept them going when they should have otherwise been erased from existence.<p>

Three of the figures he had seen were warmer than the average human, the sign of magi or beings that overused the magical force in their bodies. One had not.

The one that had massacred the others.

"The hell…?"

Kiritsugu could not begin to figure out what had happened—the low resolution from his night vision combined with the distance he viewed from obfuscated most of the action. All he knew was this unknown person, a young man, had absolutely destroyed three vampires and done so without magic.

"So, the goddess of fortune smiles upon us," Kiritsugu muttered, though he himself was not even sure whether he was being sarcastic or not. An unknown quantity was a dangerous unpredictability, and Kiritsugu hated being uninformed, especially of something capable of swiftly murdering supernatural beings.

On the other hand, he grudgingly accepted that fewer targets were beneficial to his mission.

At least one of the killed had been on Kiritsugu's target list as far as he could make out through the scope. If all three were indeed working for the same group, that was three less he had to destroy before giving his position away. Too, Kiritsugu felt that this mysterious someone would not have taken up arms against the Apostles unless he had already encountered others, and the fact that he was still alive implied that any other encounters would not. Once again, fewer for him to deal with, or for Maiya to handle if any got by.

Kiritsugu tracked the unknown fighter until he disappeared from where Kiritsugu could see from his position. Sighing, the magus killer returned his sights onto the deck below him, where crew members had begun to pull out the emergency craft.

* * *

><p>When the explosion rocked the ship and caused the walls of the conference room to shudder, the Apostle left to finish the first capsule's blood pool tossed the last body aside. Closing the device, he hauled it up over his shoulder and took off. Though this was not part of the plan, the calculations he and the others had made said this location would be enough. Cautious of the situation, he decided to circle around to the staircase on the starboard side of the ship, ascending them as the order to evacuate went out over the speakers.<p>

Once on the main deck, he went straight for the edge and tossed the metal container overboard, not even bothering to watch it go—panicked passengers and crewmembers were starting to come out of the woodwork. People were starting to climb out of the lower decks or peek heads out of doorways to find where they were being directed to exit.

The vampire peered to the back of the ship, saw some of his others already amidst the gathering crowd. Apparently, the general consensus was to escape and complete their task another day.

* * *

><p>The dining hall was annoyingly silent when Kiri pushed open the doors. Though he had hoped for a crowd of confused people, the fact remained that he did not expect such a thing—the drugged drinks were certainly strong enough that Kiri had picked up the scent without supernatural aid. If there was that much, the guests present were probably doomed.<p>

People were laid out in their seats, the occasional few on the floor. Kiri could see the frog-like auctioneer near the podium, sprawled out on the cold floor as if inebriated.

"Somewhere along your lives, you forgot the wisdom of not trusting what strangers hand you to drink," Kiri said. A careful examination of the room found nobody still conscious, but when Kiri turned his attention to the kitchen, he could see that golden hue of unnatural life just beyond. "Still here, hmm?" He had to figure out a way to get a drop on this one—the aura was stronger, implying a longer-lived or more powerful demon awaited.

The assassin moved over to the auction table, to the one thing that he had thought of bidding on. It resembled a simple gray bar of metal, though one end was hollow. Tapping the switch to one side, a sharp blade extended from the hollow, lending the weapon the look of an unsheathed aikuchi-mounted tanto. He flicked the blade in and out once more, nodded in approval, and discarded the bent screwdriver he had used previously.

The doors to the kitchen opened, and that Dead Apostle he had seen earlier in this room—the one wearing a casual suit but with the shirt untucked—stepped into view. "Who the hell are you?" the man asked.

"So much for getting the drop on him," Kiri shrugging to himself. There was too great a distance between them to do as he had to the first vampires he had victimized, surprising them even as they were aware of his presence. This room was also not ideal for his style of combat, as the ceiling was much higher than the corridors to the rest of the ship.

"I said—" the Apostle began.

Kiri charged in toward the vampire, grabbing one of the tablecloths as he passed, causing a din as plates and silverware clattered and crashed in his wake. He lifted the white material the moment he passed within a half-dozen meters of the Apostle, a curtain between them. The cloth then went quickly from vertical to horizontal, like an open umbrella pulled violently closed. It shot forward, directly at the target, a bed sheet ghost bent on terrorizing the enemy. Kiri had thrown the military dagger from before.

The Apostle knocked the sheet aside with the back of his hand. He had seen through the diversion, waited for Kiri to move laterally or leap in for an overhead strike while his attention should have been on the cloth, propelled forward by a thrown knife. A Dead Apostle could easy see and avoid danger, could dodge a bullet even after it was fired, so one knife was no threat to him, no matter how it was concealed—

A knife embedded itself into the vampire's throat from below.

With the energy from his run and the smooth surface of the floor beneath him, Kiri fell to his shins, his knees bent, arching backward like the most extreme limbo contestant. His momentum slid him down at the feet of his opponent, his action momentarily obscured by the flying tablecloth and the vampire's attention to the sides and above—an action that would have been defeated had the Apostle focused downward on the projectile like a normal human might have.

Blood spat out onto the floor and into the fringes of Kiri's hair as the knife pierced the vampire's jugular.

Kiri continued his slide between the legs of his target, his arms reaching out to hook the man at the ankles. Bunching all of his strength into the motion, Kiri sprang from his knees upward, lifting his arms above his head as he did so, flinging the Apostle so his heels flew into the air and his head flew into the floor.

Reflex had the man flinching away from the floor, a slight angle of adjustment that brought the hilt of the knife into the floor first.

Without waiting to see the Apostle's condition, Kiri knelt onto the man's back, grabbed the hilt of the knife, and brought it back up and around. The motion completely severed the head from the body even smoother than the knives Kiri kept with his other tools of the trade.

"Huh." He kicked the head away from the body, though his attention went to the knife, now coated in lifeless red. "Whoever was maintaining this antique sure knew their job. That is _really_ sharp." Hurriedly, he went for the tablecloth he'd thrown, started wiping the blood away before it had any chance to oxidize the metal.

The thought of pursuing the others that had taken off crossed his mind, but he decided it was better to look for escape. Even now he could feel his balance off as the ship took on water and tilted unnaturally to one side. His slide had carried him faster than it would have had the ship been level.

Too, the fact that the explosion and the ship sinking was not apparently part of these demons' plans. Something else entirely was happening, and Kiri felt that it might be someone else also out for blood. "Two predators in the same space gets messy. And this really is my week off…"

He looked around the room, at all the unconscious people. It was not like it mattered to him, personally, what happened to everyone—people died every day, he knew that fact very well. But he also did not care for needless death, and these people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So he made his way over to the kitchens, empty from the evacuation order, and found one of the crew radios. "If anyone is listening, there are a bunch of people still in the dining hall, and they all look out of it. You might get people down here to help wake them up and carry them out."

Still, he did not want to be found out and interrogated over the entire situation, so he took off from there, out of the kitchen and dining room until he found a sufficient population of people making ready to leave the ship.

* * *

><p>Kiritsugu had four targets in sight, hidden amidst the growing crowd of people. As escape boats were inflated and leveled out over the same diving station where he had met Maiya, people crowded about the exit in an attempt to be the first off; the tilt from the vessel taking on water was noticeable now, and it had people excited and worried.<p>

Unfortunately, Kiritsugu would be adding to that anxiety.

Dead Apostles could dodge bullets. A gun fired from close range could be avoided by an Apostle of sufficient age and power, their eyes perfect enough to see a bullet in motion or a muzzle flash from a great distance away, their reflexes great enough to avoid the bullet even after it has been fired.

Kiritsugu knew this well, and so he always made sure to shoot when their backs were turned. After all, no matter how great their hearing, nothing could make a person hear faster than the speed of sound—and the 7.62 NATO round moved at double that speed.

He lined up his targets and pulled the trigger.

The first shot was perfect in every way: the bullet smashed into the back of the first Apostle's head and right into his brain.

The second shot was still efficient, striking Kiritsugu's second target along the upper back at the spine. Kiritsugu tapped the trigger twice more on that target, then shifted as fast as he could to the next vampire.

The fifth shot was on target, though just barely. The third Apostle, a woman, took it to her shoulder as she turned, the hit blasting a mist of red into the air but not bringing her down. Clamping his teeth together, Kiritsugu used the confined space his targets occupied to his advantage, shooting at extreme angles relative to the vampire's position while she jostled with the crowd. He unloaded another seven rounds and the woman went down—he was certain at least four of the shots hit.

By the time he could turn to the last target, the man had disappeared from the area. Now, the crowd was in a furor, the panic of three people suddenly dropping and gunfire ringing out through the night brought shouting and screaming. Some people hit the deck, others ran for cover, and most pushed harder toward the diving station to make escape—pushing some at the forefront right into the water. Shouts from crew were distinct as they attempted to discern who was attacking and from where.

Kiritsugu continued to scan the crowd, particularly the ones moving toward him rather than away. The last Dead Apostle was still out there, and as he swept over the deck, errant heat signatures lingered through the air like a vapor trail, even greater than the average undead.

"Dammit—"

"Indeed," came a voice from behind him.

This, however, was not unexpected. Kiritsugu did not need to turn to know his enemy now stood behind him, watching his every move, ready to strike him the moment he attempted to turn and attack.

So he did not attack.

"_Time alter—double accel!" _

Discarding the rifle completely, Kiritsugu leapt up over the catwalk railings and plummeted down, all as the Dead Apostle lagged just enough that Kiritsugu avoided being struck down by the vampire. He released the spell as he fell, before the second part of his escape made ready—

Before settling down, he had secured a harness wire to the railing, a safety net like the ones given to stunt men operating on the top of skyscrapers or mountain cliffs.

Kiritsugu bit down on the pain of his spell returning his body to the normal flow of time, growled against the feeling of blood bursting in his body and his bones cracking from the strain. He swung around to the access ladder that had brought him up to the smoke stack to begin with, detached the cord, and started climbing down.

The lead Kiritsugu had on the vampire was too great—and the vampire knew it. "Magecraft? Modern weaponry? Don't think even we haven't heard of the infamous Emiya, mage killer." The Apostle ran over to get within sight as Kiritsugu descended the ladder. "But _my_ magic has had decades to be refined, unlike a _human's_." He raised a hand. _"Caeli clavis!"_

A gout of wind flew from his hand and struck the ladder from above; tiny jets sliced the bars clean into pieces, and the lower portion of the ladder fell away from the hull, no longer secured. Kiritsugu fell backwards, though before he hit the deck, he twisted around and leapt from the ladder back toward the other exhaust stacks and out of sight, the only herald to his landing the distant crashing noise as his body hit laminated decking.

"Don't think you can get away," the Apostle said, leaping down from the catwalk and landing where Kiritsugu would have been had he just let himself fall. "I see your little speed trick, and can avoid it now. You don't live as long as we do by falling for the same thing twice." He strode on in the direction Kiritsugu had gone, now something of a downhill slope as the front of the ship was pulled deeper into the sea.

From where he waited, Kiritsugu allowed himself a grim smile.

The vampire brought his own magecraft to bear. Reinforcing his already superhuman senses of sight and sound such that he could see the faintest of scuff marks on the deck and hear everything in the immediate vicinity with greater detail than the sharpest of owls—

"_Time alter—triple stagnate."_

But no magically enhanced senses could detect what resembled a corpse more than a living being.

The Dead Apostle passed right by where Kiritsugu crouched in the shadow of the ship's hull where no moonlight could reach, and Kiritsugu raised the Contender in the vampire's wake.

* * *

><p>On the escape rafts, one of twenty or so within sight of each other, the crew and passengers of the doomed ship moved in the general direction of Japan, waiting for rescue from any of the other ships out to sea in the area. Three had already radioed in prior to the ship sinking that they were on the way, and so everyone waited as patiently as frazzled nerves and seasick stomachs could handle.<p>

Aboard one raft, Kiri Nanaya admired his new weapon, chuckling to himself here and there as he replayed the night's events through his mind's eye.

Aboard another, Kiritsugu Emiya slept, waiting for his body to recover from his overuse of Innate Time Control.

Aboard the last raft to escape the cruise liner, a Dead Apostle nursed the physical wound of a bullet to his back, but cursed as he tried to reestablish prana flow within his body.

* * *

><p>They whispered, of course, once rescued.<p>

The events of that night were strange and sudden. Fire alarms, explosions, terrorists apparently striking specific targets down. Passengers spoke with their rescuers, with each other, conjuring up reasons why their ship had been targeted—ransoming the wealthy on board, targeting business or political rivals, random extremist violence. It was hard for any to comprehend why them, however, as terrorism in Asia was not as rampant as it was in Europe and Africa.

Crewmembers directed their rescuers to Shimonoseki, the original destination of their vessel, despite still being marginally closer to Korea. Their captain insisted.

Upon arrival, one ship at a time, it was already getting late once more as weary rescuers and rescuees disembarked on Japanese soil, the first leg of their adventure over. Local police, alerted to the situation, now escorted them to be debriefed by international security forces and the JSDF despite their exhausted dispositions.

One figure broke off from the pack, escaping from the masses of people and eyes of watchful police into the shadows of the unused warehouse wharf across from the busy docks.

The man shook, both in pain and anger. The blood had long since stopped flowing, his wound had closed, and his body had repaired itself. But no matter what he did, more than half of his Magical Circuits would not function, his body burning up every time he tried. It was the pain of being mortal again, the pain of knowing power was within his grasp, but being bolted down in place, unable to reach that power without doing something unnatural.

His sire would make it, though, would be able to reverse this damage. He understood that though his circuits were damaged beyond repair, that if their task had been successful, he could learn steps to reverse or circumvent this problem, forge new pathways through his immortal body. The current could jump locations if a second loop could be forged—

The Apostle could do nothing. As before, on the ship, his ears could still hear only as fast as any other. The sound of a supersonic bullet being fired from hundreds of meters away only reached his ears after the cartilage had been blown completely away. Nor could processes fired off inside his head begin to recognize "sound" by that time, as his brain was no longer a singular mass held within his skull.

That single gunshot rang out across the wharf milliseconds after the Apostle's body began to fall, his head now resembling a hemisphere of a watermelon, the insides half-scooped out.

From the top of a warehouse to the east, a teenage girl, hardly as tall as the rifle she toted, crawled back from the edge of a building and headed for the ladder at the other end of the building.

The body of the Apostle would not survive the morning.

* * *

><p>The capsule sank into the depths, dragged along by the iron weight it was made from.<p>

It was not so simple, to construct such a device. A basic weight, huge and blocky, would sink as straight down as it could and embed itself once it reached the bottom. Nor would a lighter weight suffice, which could be crushed by the pressure deep beneath the sea, or wander too far from target.

This capsule was perfect—sinking without being crushed, drifting with the currents and not halting in one exact spot.

The Sea of Japan was serene, its tidal motion faint and the motion underwater minimal. The capsule moved perhaps two or three meters a day at most, rolling and sliding along the seabed like an underwater tumbleweed.

Until finally, one day, it would reach its destination.

When it was close enough, it stopped being carried by the current, halted being pulled by mere natural force. It shuddered at the edge of the range, then when it slid close enough, started moving as if dragged by an invisible hand. The capsule moved the same distance it had traveled in two weeks over the span of thirty seconds until it halted against a concrete box the size of a coffin.

Years of pressure and wear had cracked the concrete surface, though no living thing surrounded its immediate vicinity, as if its very presence was poisonous. A lonely existence.

The capsule smashed against the edge of the concrete, withdrew, and smashed again, the invisible force striking the iron as it were the steel to the concrete's flint. It repeated the process again, again, again, and again, repeated against the same side of the capsule until it had collapsed in.

Blood from within moved out of the capsule, flowed into the cracks and crevices of the concrete's structure.

Around one end of the concrete box, a woven pattern of light burnt into existence. The glow lit the darkness of the sea with a red color like dinoflaggelates that permeated spring beaches in some places of the world. It resembled a circle with odd designs and devices about its rings. From the circle, veins shot out in every direction, encompassing the top of the container like a crown of thorns.

The light to one side then faded until it appeared nothing more than a discolored mark along the concrete's face.

* * *

><p>AN: So, I don't know a ton about guns. Can you tell? All my experience is with hunting rifles and shotguns. And Nerf guns. Can you imagine how awesome a dad Kiritsugu would've been had he lived to see the advent of the modern Nerf weaponry out there? "Shirou, Illya, time to wake up!" POP POP POP! And then Shirou pulls out a Nerf sword for defense.<p>

I didn't reference the Kyokushi move directly because, well, same reason I didn't have Shirou do Nine Lives in _Escaping Fate_, I guess. We've seen it, so, time to do something similar but different?

I initially thought of putting this on a train, simply because the logistics would be easier. However, as I started to write it, I realized that Kiri was about a hair's breadth from _Baccano!_ and Rail Tracer territory, so I scrapped that. I have not been on a cruise liner of this size before, though, so if descriptions sound off…sorry?

Next bit will be a while. I need to turn attention back to _Fate/Far Side_ for now.


	3. Chapter 3

III

* * *

><p><em>April, 2008<em>

It was a large freighter of over 300 meters in length, and almost full to capacity. The _Chungking Express_ was bound for Kobe from the mainland, the first major transfer of the fiscal year—a good start to the year.

When other ships in the vicinity lost radio contact, it was thought to be a normal occurrence. The weather was not ideal, with spring winds and the occasional precipitation making the waters a little choppy and the atmosphere a little charged. Though a cargo ship of that size was new to the region, radios malfunctioned all the time. One minute the captain of the ship is chatting with fishermen hailing from Nagasaki, the next there's silence over the airwaves.

Well, the fishermen would say, the captain of the _Chungking_ would either get his equipment running, or he would get a ribbing from his fellows when he made it to port. There were no worries: cargo ships like that could plow right through any weather the Sea of Japan had to offer—this was not a northern shore where the Pacific waters became treacherous.

Many kilometers away, in the back rooms of a church in Fuyuki, a chime set to ring under certain circumstances begged to differ.

* * *

><p>His communion with the Apostles of his blood had told them what to do. It had secured his release, though interference had delayed it by over two decades.<p>

His time within the coffin, bereft of lifeblood had weakened him. But his distortions had kept him alive, the bending of reality around him with his eyes. He had found the power to crack the foundations of his prison, to disturb the physical body that made it up, though he could not destroy the container itself as weak as he was.

But through his machinations, he had managed to drive his distortions out into the surround, into the water that flowed and swirled around him. He could not drive himself out of his stone prison without the blood of the humans, but he could bring that blood to him—

The plan had called for the sacrifice of twenty, the same number of lives that had sealed him away, that had used holy scriptures and mystical arts to damage his physical body and drain him of energy. By the laws of magic that governed his eyes, he needed as many to reverse the damage and destroy the power that contained him.

Though only four had come, a fifth of what was needed.

Still, it had been enough to damage the seal, had been enough to extend his influence. He could reach out beyond his coffin, could distort the seas around him, and, eventually, his distortions had reached the surface, had entrapped a vessel of iron, a vessel running on the blood of human work. He tore that ship down into the depths and fed upon those within until he was strong again. Strong as he had been before, like he had never suffered the loss of power to begin with.

It was no coincidence that the moon was in ascendance, waxing nearly full when his power reached others, when he gorged himself until he was bloated and saturated.

And like stories of ghost ships haunting the seas, he reared the vessel back into the open air, now a distortion under his sovereignty.

Rochus, one of the Dead Apostle Ancestors, was released from his bindings.

* * *

><p>After the early 17th Century, religious movements from the West were limited within Japan's borders. Christians were executed and religious influence was snuffed out, forcing active members of the Church to go underground and stay hidden from the eyes. The official numbers of followers disappeared. The undocumented numbers dwindled. Functional members of the Church that operated in the shadows—the Executors—became but a handful within the region.<p>

Rochus hated the Church.

He had trekked with the Dutch traders in Japan, the secular men that had no ties to the Christians of Portugal and other countries influencing the isolated country. He had thought, by traveling there, he could establish himself away from the prying eyes of the Church and the subtle conflicts of domain and personality with the Apostles of Europe. Japan was ideal, far and away from any strong influence—

But the members of the Church still there, hidden away from the eyes of the Shogunate, had been all the more militant about keeping their borders clear. Though persecuted, though gaining little outside help from the Holy See in Europe, the remaining members were the strongest and most clever, ones capable of protecting themselves from both the mundane and the magical.

Though he had time to set up, had time to create followers, it was not long before the Church had tracked him down. They had sent all available resources in the country to work for his destruction—meeting destruction themselves.

The bastards.

So he had sat, contained, the Church unable to muster the strength to destroy him entirely—the isolated Japanese had not the tools necessary to do much but seal him away—and his power had weakened to but the most miniscule of influence outside his stone prison. He had long since distorted his own existence to the degree that the lack of sustenance could kill him, and even beneath the seas, he could regain strength with each phase of the moon. But enough power had been taken, had been drained, and so he sat, waiting, unable to do anything for himself.

Biding his time and allowing for his progeny to do its work.

It had taken them centuries to find the correct information, the records of where the Church had sealed him away. It had taken nearly another ten years to ascertain what was required to return their sire to the world, to settle on a plan that was quiet and effective.

Yet still, they were found out.

However, it mattered little in the end, the meticulous plans and time wasted. Rochus was patient—he had all the time in the world—and his offspring had managed enough. He was freed some time later than originally planned, but still within the realm of _fast_, relative to the life span of an immortal. Now he could use all of the plans and ideas he had while festering in his coffin, could show the Church what it meant to be patient if its current state could even muster a force to attempt on his life.

* * *

><p>Rochus stood on the bow of the ship, appraising the island country. From what he could understand in the passage of time, over two hundred years had passed since he was sealed away. Japan had certainly changed—the ship he had stolen had proven that, made of iron and other materials he was not even familiar with. Learning what he could from distorting his victims' memories, he could gather that technology had leapt forward and magic was considered nothing but myth to the people.<p>

All the better. It fit into his original plans for such isolation.

There were more people, however—lights made a haze of color on the horizon, even before the shore could be seen clearly. It reminded Rochus of days before his containment, of fireflies gathering about the rivers around Japan, around the land he would now claim as his own territory.

Perhaps, then, he would look into the other psychics he had heard of within the borders, the demon hunter clans that could show even members of the Church elite a thing or two. Their power, after all, was like the power he had mastered in his mortal life, the power that had seen him through when his transformation to Dead Apostle had come to be—

The ship he had commandeered was still a ways from reaching port, but he could easily see, under the moonlit sky, the five figures standing upon the jetty closest to his approach. Though indiscernible from any other beings that peppered the land, going about their late-night work, even at this distance he could tell that these were not the kind of ordinary people going about mundane lives. It was not quite a full sensation, though as one who lived over time fighting beings of supernatural power, it was the kind of periphery perception that was gained from surviving.

Rochus felt these were the ones sent to greet him. He knew that, sealed away by the Church, the survivors of his last battle would have set an alarm of sorts on him, a warning if he were to escape. He had imagined how many his enemies would send to face him, what their strength would be. After pillaging the minds of the freighter's crew, however, he had come to wonder if there would be any to face him to begin with, the perceived strength of the Church so weak within the borders of Japan, the strength of those who knew the darkness that existed more hidden away than ever compared to older times.

"A mere five. It took twenty members of the Church to even come close to defeating me before, and they have sent five. I am…disappointed." Though the outcome of the battle had resulted in his imprisonment, it still allowed a small sense of satisfaction to know how much the members of the Church had suffered for it. It had taken all twenty to contain him, and he had killed all but two when the seal had been secured on his coffin.

And though he had been sealed away, his progeny had survived. That seemed a greater victory, in light of what he had gleaned from the minds of the ship's crew—that the Church, though returned to Japan in official capacity, had little influence over the island nation. Less influence than even the rest of the powerful nations in Asia.

"So the Church has grown weak in the time since it has sealed me, at least within these borders." Rochus nodded to himself, then turned his gaze upon the cargo containers on the deck of the freighter behind him. "Still, a good opportunity to see how much of my strength I have regained."

The violet hue to his eyes seemed to grow, like the nighttime sky was overtaking his irises, and he channeled his manipulations through them, envisioning what he wanted—

A spark of electricity ran from the deck up to the topmost cargo container of one stack, electrifying the entire set. He surged the distortion of his world into their very existence.

Rochus then turned his gaze back out past the bow of the ship, toward the docks where those sent to greet him had assembled.

* * *

><p>They were indeed a mere five, a tiny handful, all the Church of Japan could muster. Only two of those five were even representatives of the Church, and neither looked the part—one wore a black and grey form-fitting outfit that looked less like clothing and more like a gymnast's leotard. The other wore a blue dress that flared out at the hips, leaving her shoulders and thighs bare, though the latter was countered by over-knee boots.<p>

"How much of his strength do you think remains?" the first, Caren Ortensia, wondered aloud. She brushed absently at a red length of cloth woven through her arms as if she could wear it like a shawl. "After a hundred and eighty years of imprisonment, it must be limited."

The latter woman sighed as she stared out over the harbor waters, her eyes almost glowing under the moonlight. "He should be at a fraction of his capacity, but he isn't even the danger directly." Ciel shook her head, dark locks swaying. "The reports on his initial capture said that he was probably a psychic before his turning. His abilities are like Mystic Eyes, actualizing distortions with a gaze, though they bend the active will of a thing. In that way, he doesn't even have to move to be dangerous. I can already detect irregularities around the ship, almost like a series of boundary fields—he's making the ship like his own personal mobile fortress."

"Boooring," the third person said. Her legs kicked out over the edge of the dock she sat at, a child forced to wait patiently. Or not-so-patiently. "He should distort the distance between us so he can hurry it up and get closer." Arcueid Brunestud did not even particularly feel this entire situation necessary—she would have gravitated toward this returning Ancestor eventually, or he to her—but that lingering sense of responsibility coupled with Ciel's request for help could not go unanswered.

Not that, of course, Ciel asked _her_ in particular.

"Shiiiiiikiiiiiii," Arc whined, leaning back and glancing over her shoulder into the darkness cast by one of the numerous containers on the dock. "Did we really have to get here three hours early?"

It wasn't a completely pointless question, either. The amount of effort required to actually ensure Arcueid could feint off her "programming," her deeply-rooted predilection to sleep now that her duties were over, they meant a daily conflict, a daily struggle.

Her continued existence of smiles and enjoyment could only be maintained by the continued efforts of the one that no longer looked upon them.

The wrappings around Shiki Tohno's eyes kept him from directly viewing the True Ancestor, though his attention was on her, his concealed and covered face turned in her direction as if the barrier were no impediment to his gaze. He gave a faint smile from the cargo container's shadow, a gesture that was at least enough to momentarily placate the blond vampiress' impatience.

Momentarily.

"Boooooored," she moaned, thirty seconds later.

"Not for long," the last figure said, from atop the same container, his feet planted and his eyes on the horizon and the distant speck of a ship. His red hair was matched by something resembled a knight's surcoat, the styling matched by the breastplate around his chest. Though his eyes did not have anything particularly special about them compared to the others, they kept vigil in the moonlight like an owl waiting for prey. "I think…he's about to do something." Shirou Emiya blinked once, then nodded. "Yep." His tone was casual. "Duck."

A cargo container not unlike the one they surrounded crashed into the docks as if fired from a canon. It smashed where the five had gathered, sending a plume of dust and dirt and twisted metal into the air.

The five of them had scattered about, now too far from each other to be a simple, single target. As they glanced at one another to make sure nobody had been hurt—or at least, Ciel, Caren and Shirou did, Arc merely looked to Shiki and Shiki was not looking at any of them to begin with—Caren said, "Perhaps we should move in now?"

"Good thing we brought two boats, then. Try and divide his attention." Ciel said. She was already leaping into one of the small powerboats they had requisitioned. "Hit him from both sides?"

Arc was following after her, sighing. "If we must."

Shiki followed her, and on the other side of the dock jetty, Shirou and Caren settled into a second powerboat, its engine already revving up. "So, in other words," Shirou was saying, "the current plan is entirely made up of: split up, hit from both sides, then wing it?"

Ciel shouted as Shiki started up the engine to their boat. "Don't worry, even that straightforward a plan will get ruined by my partners, here."

"We will not worry," Caren said back, though she did not raise her voice much at all. "If one of you is in danger, Shirou will gladly sacrifice his body to shield you from any injury, from being crushed by thirty tons to suffering a paper cut."

Both Ciel and Shirou stared, though Caren returned their gazes impassively. Only Shiki seemed to give a faint grin at that.

Arc, standing at the bow of her ship, was pointing. "Oh, hurry, hurry, there's more incoming—"

Another half-dozen cargo containers struck the dock and the surrounding space, cutting off further talk.

* * *

><p>Rochus' gaze fell upon the boat with three occupants as it sped to one side, his eyes making out the curious three on board. A girl in a dress that looked like it was missing parts, a boy in simple black, a blond woman—<p>

True Ancestor.

His eyes widened. Moving along the railing of the ship to follow after that trio as they circled around to the starboard, he watched the woman carefully and intently. _She_ was not to be taken lightly, though at the same time, her presence was an exciting development. If Rochus could somehow contain her, somehow distort her with his power—

* * *

><p>"That was certainly a rude greeting he gave us earlier," Caren said as she took the controls to their boat. "You should give him one in return."<p>

Shirou nodded. Taking a half-step up to place himself clear of the boat's windshield, he held out his hand, a bow taking shape in his grip. _"Trace, on."_

* * *

><p>The ship itself had become a distortion, a mobile fortress. Like the Forest of Einnashe, it was now a moving distortion, the physical representation of Rochus' power warping the world like a personal Reality Marble. Unlike Einnashe, it had no heart; instead, it was merely a product, one of many Rochus could generate with the proper time and energy.<p>

Still, it was no simple creation. The layers of its hull were now warded, the metals reinforced or recomposed, various areas shifted to resemble a magician's nightmare of bounded fields and wraith summonings. A weapon fired upon it would rebound off of shields greater than any armor plating or be distorted into nullifying space and implode; a person stepping foot on board could attract the attention of spirits to possess them or the reanimated bodies of the crew to attack them. Rochus had not only drained the life from the ship, but distorted the memories on board to a nightmarish world of his choosing.

Rochus considered opening the door, so to speak, for the True Ancestor. He wanted her up close, understood that such meager defenses would do little but stall their meeting. But still, two others were with her, and he wanted little interference—

* * *

><p>"<em>My bone twists into madness."<em>

* * *

><p>Seven layers of hull plating and magical enhancement failed with an explosion to the port side of the vessel.<p>

Rochus glanced over his shoulder to the plume of smoke now rising from one side of the ship. He contemplated the sort of things that could cause such damage and wondered if these beings were mere Church Executors, or something more or different.

No, Rochus sighed, it made sense that they would not be mere Executors. If the True Ancestor rode with them, it seemed likely that they were not related to the Church at all, or in a limited fashion—most of the Church types avoided contact with perceived heretical beings. Perhaps these were magi that had been turned by the True Ancestor, like it was rumored she had once done to the Serpent of Akasha.

If they were so, if they had earned the interest of the True Ancestor, then they had earned his interest and full concentration as well.

* * *

><p>AN: So, yes, before you ask questions, these are main-route Shiki and Shirou. Meaning Shiki is "with" Arc and Shirou is the one depicted in Fate.<p>

For Shiki, the depiction is a reference to the little bit Nasu has written on the proposed _Tsukihime 2_ and is touched upon by the original game's Eclipse and the ending to the manga. Say hello to Satsujinki.

For Shirou, I guess you could say it's a further extrapolation of what is in _Escaping Fate_, though this isn't meant to be a continuation of that or in the same continuity or anything. Maybe. Also this is really just about making the main route protags do badass stuff, really, just like the first half was about making their dads do badass stuff.

Ship named in reference to an awesome film. DAA made up, and god do I hate having to figure out characters like this.


	4. Chapter 4

IV

* * *

><p>Shirou saw it, just barely. His eyes, Reinforced to the degree that he could see better than a hawk, detected the faint wavering of color in the Dead Apostle Ancestor's gaze. He could not make out what the shift was, exactly—his magic could not make him see beyond the visible light spectrum, and it was still twilight out—but it was just the barest of hints that told him something he had learned to trust:<p>

His life was at stake, right now.

Without any thought, he grabbed Caren around the waist with his free arm and hurdled them both over the side of their boat.

Air and sea distorted. The ship spun in a barrel roll impossible over the otherwise smooth sea surface and plowed headlong into the depths. Had a person still been on board, they would have been crushed between surf and ship.

Shirou pulled Caren below the surface, kept them swimming even beyond getting away from the initial attack—

A current, sudden and swift, hit them from behind and carried them back up to the surface. The surf that should have been calm swirled around until it rose like a tsunami, carrying both magi and executor meters into the air.

Through the surge, Shirou managed to keep his attention on the ship, caught sight of the Dead Apostle Ancestor that was to be their target. The gaze he found was a swirl of red unnatural when compared to even an albino or any creature he could remember from the animal kingdom. Despite the pressure crashing into his chest and the desire to inhale increasingly impossible to resist, he clamped down on what his body wanted to do and let out the last remaining air in his lungs—

"_Trace, on_!" he said, though it came out as little more than a choked gurgle.

The crimson spear that formed in his hand cut through the water like a harpoon, and Shirou thrust it between himself and the vision of the Apostle—

Nothing. The torrent continued to churn him around like a turbine.

The Red Rose of Exorcism could cut through the prana supply fueling the abnormal action of the waves—but only if there was prana being fed to it from the beginning.

This was not just some Mystic Eyes manipulating the external world—

* * *

><p>That was because his power was not such a simple thing.<p>

All things in existence had a will, whether alive or not. Either the will of the planet or the will of mankind gave things shape, and thus will is inherent to the nature of these things. If the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception could see that all things had a flaw and could end—then it followed that all things had a purpose, too. The other side to the coin of "error" was "correctness."

Rochus' eyes could see that other side. His eyes could distort what that purpose was.

It could be used for what magi termed "Reinforcement." If the purpose of a wheel was to roll, he could make the wheel roll faster than any other. If the purpose of a sword was to cut, he could make the blade sharper than monofilament. If the purpose of armor was to protect something from harm, he could make the plating nigh-impenetrable.

On the other hand, he could do the exact opposite. He could make a wheel halt on a slope. He could make a sword unable to pierce paper. He could make armor turn upon its bearer and hurt them by wearing it.

The Japanese believed that there were an endless number of gods that resided in all things, dictated their purpose. Rochus, the Dead Apostle Ancestor, was one who stood above those gods.

The purpose—the will behind all things—were at his command.

* * *

><p>Rochus could feel the gaze that turned on him before it had cleared the lip of the deck behind him.<p>

The Dead Apostle spun around, the tails of his coat flinging up into the air. Three cross-shaped blades hit the fabric and embedded there, somehow caught yet not even a millimeter deep into the material; he had distorted his own clothing to provide protection greater than might otherwise be obvious. He smiled down at the weapons as they gave him a sense of nostalgia. "An Executor of the Church. How wonderful."

Without pause, Ciel charged up along the ship railing, throwing a handful of Keys with each step. The cross-shaped weapons slammed into the Apostle like bullets, though the distorted clothing he wore acted like a strange shield or set of armor that halted each blade. If Ciel's Keys were strong enough to punch through a concrete wall, then the millimeters of cloth Rochus wore were like iron. The psychic merely raised his arms to protect exposed skin and made sure to put his back up to the opposite side of the ship where no moon-cast shadows could be struck.

"Nothing but a distraction," Rochus said. The moment he gazed upon the next set of Keys Ciel prepared to throw, the distortion caused by his eyes bent their will to his command—and instead of flying toward his body, they came up to one side as he held out a hand. The Apostle neatly fielded the trio of blades, catching them between his knuckles in the same manner Ciel had thrown them, and spun once more in place to lash out over the edge of the deck.

Arcueid twisted her body in mid-air as she came up from the opposite side of the ship, curving up and over Rochus' thrust. The True Ancestor came down with her own attack in the process, her hand jabbing right through Rochus' sleeve and into his arm, pulling him as she flipped up onto the ship's deck. She smiled, teeth clear even in the pale light. "Shiki!"

The blindfolded one came up atop the deck in Ciel's wake, though instead of moving along the boat lengthwise, he charged straight in at the Dead Apostle Ancestor. Resembling a beast more than a man, Shiki seemed to move on all fours, leaping from place to place rather than running foot-over-foot. He moved up on Rochus, bounded off the rocking floor, and leapt up at the Apostle, holding a gray bar before him—

—A blade sliding out of the end with a quiet rasp—

It was no use, however—be it superhuman fast or not. One moment, the Apostle has death charging him, the next he is on the opposite side of the ship, swinging his arm freely despite the fact that Arcueid's fanged hand is knuckle-deep into his flesh. Rochus slammed the vampire princess into the dark-haired Executor in a full body-check. "Sneak attacks are merely tricks—"

Shiki flew completely off the ship's edge and stabbed the gout of water imprisoning Shirou and Caren.

Liquid splashed about like an invisible container had suddenly been broken. Shirou stabbed Gae Dearg into the ship's hull with one hand and kept his other curled around Caren's waist. In turn, the girl, despite a desperate gasp for breath, waved her hand and the red cloth about her arms flew out and hooked itself around Shiki's ankle.

Shirou swung himself up with the spear as a fulcrum, pulling Caren, who pulled Shiki.

The Apostle had cleared himself from Arc and still had the stolen Black Keys—all three lined faintly with red. Three matching cuts to Ciel's waist mirrored Rochus' grip on the weapons, the signs of a close-call.

Shiki flung himself from Caren's cloth like a sling, though once again the Apostle seemed to disappear before him.

It wasn't a matter of speed or reflexes, but placement. This ship was Rochus' distorted domain, and with a single glance he could move within its boundaries at will. It was not unlike a Reality Marble like many other Apostle Ancestors had, though it was different in design. After all, sight was a matter of light reaching the eyes, and so he could move from one place to the next with the same speed. The only delay came from his own ability to process the thought. Still—faster than a mere human could move.

Though, even as fast as that was—

Shirou pulled himself and Caren up and planted himself onto the deck of the ship. "_Trace, on!_"

They could still hit all places at once.

Blades rained down from the sky, enough to blot a solid shadow onto the deck of the ship.

Rochus did not move like a mortal to avoid them, instead seeming to blink from place to place, between sword-strikes and spear-skewers, in the tiny gaps that even an expert contortionist would fail to move through. He would then appear elsewhere on the deck as those gaps were filled in by more blades, until the ship's deck stopped resembling a pin-cushion and began to look more like a strange field of tall grass.

"Boy, you err in the belief that this will do me more harm than good!" Once more like a blink, like a sudden difference in frame from one image to another, the deck was clear of weapons. Now they hung once more in the sky, while Rochus, standing atop the ship's main cabin, lowered his gaze from the hovering blades to the figures below. "Fly," he said.

"_I am the bone of my sword—_"

The Seven Ringed Shield intercepted the blades that flew toward Shirou and Caren, rebounding off the shield of Aias with a sound like steel raindrops. Though the protection continued to protect them, Shirou gasped louder than even the cacophony of metal could drown out. He braced the projection with both arms, digging his heels into the ground as hard as he could.

Rochus spared a smile, and his gaze drifted away. He turned to where the other member of the Church and the True Ancestor were, their forms dancing between blades, deflecting some aside and just barely avoiding others. The magus boy had presented him with enough to continue the current assault indefinitely—

Or bring them to their knees in one fell swoop.

"_The fourth tail is my domain. Take the fire of my light into battle with beasts—"_

The boy was chanting once more, and Rochus moved his gaze back to the magus. He distorted the flower-shaped shield and let fly with another volley—

"_Sword of the storm god—Kusanagi!_"

Another sword had formed in Shirou's right hand, but almost as soon as it had formed seemed to break apart from the inside-out. The blast outward from the weapon was less of an explosion and more of a tornado, throwing Caren backward and flinging Shirou forward.

The surge of wind threw the flying swords awry, the weapons grazing or completely missing their target. The boy instead flew straight up at the Dead Apostle Ancestor, a drill-shaped blade in his left hand. Rochus brought his gaze to the air before him, thickening the atmosphere until it was sturdier than a stone wall—

Space distorted, and not by Rochus' will. The blade passed through the distance between them as if the air were not twisted by Mystic Eyes. It pierced his armor-like clothing, then skewered the Apostle in place.

"You're not the only one that can twist things around," Shirou said through clenched teeth.

Yet the Apostle did not move. He gazed down at where the weapon had pierced him, smiled, gave an involuntary shrug. "This won't stop me." He ignored the boy and his sword, his eyes locked on Arcueid over Shirou's shoulder. The blades still in the sky flew about Rochus like a halo and angled toward the True Ancestor. "Though I thank you for the additional power. Even such things, once commanded by others, can be bent to my will. I can distort anything I see."

"You're underestimating—"

"No," Rochus laughed. "I'm not." Once more, like an error in a projected image between frames, the Apostle was suddenly beside the boy, no longer pierced by a blade—not even marked, as if the wound had never happened. "Though they may be facsimiles, I can understand a Noble Phantasm when I see one."

The blades flew through the air at both Arc and Ciel from multiple directions, more than before. The stream of weapons did what Shirou had attempted to earlier: they flew toward the duo at calculated intervals, in directions that forced the pair to drift apart, Ciel further away from the center of the ship and Arc closer to the middle. Meanwhile, blades resumed flight toward Shirou—some picking up from where they had been flung at he and Caren earlier, spinning up end-over-end back into the sky, buzzards to surround and cage in the blacksmithing magus.

Shirou brought another sword in hand, deflected the weapons as they spun in toward him. "It's not her you're underestimating."

The succession of blades grew, until, like Shirou's attack before, they could cast a solid shadow over where Arc stood. Though the True Ancestor moved faster than human perception could track, she did not have the speed to destroy so many weapons—

Somehow weaving in between blades no further apart than a handspan, Shiki moved along the deck like a scuttling arachnid, cutting weapons as they flew in lower than Arc's waist, picking up a short sword discarded nearby to deflect at twice the rate. Arc concentrated on batting the weapons out of the air coming at her head and torso, tearing them apart with her bare hands. Swords and spears came in from every angle except below the feet, and each blade in turn, destroyed as fast as they came.

Rochus made a sound somewhere between a cough and a snarl, briefly glancing to where the Church girls had gone, but finding that his assault had driven both to jump overboard. His attention returned to the blond vampiress and her strange guardian. "You move like a spider," the Apostle said to the blinded boy, "so I suppose your legs need to be cut out from beneath you."

The last volley of weapons blasted not toward Arc, nor to Shiki, but to the deck at their feet, more violently than before—until both blade and plating were decimated. The wreckage caused a plume of smoke, the steel of swords striking too harshly against the laminate and iron of ship body. When the dust blew away with the sea air, Ancestor and assassin had fallen through the rough hole formed beneath them.

Rochus gazed momentarily at the damage he had done, then returned the ship's deck to its original state—as if nothing had just happened—before returning his gaze back up over his shoulder at the boy magus.

Shirou stared back, the blades that had flown around him destroyed, twin scimitars now in hand.

"Give me more phantasms, young one," Rochus said. "Since they seem to be all you can do to defeat me. I will acknowledge your abilities—and use them to slay the others and help seal the True Ancestor's strength."

* * *

><p>"You never said you were going to save that other boy and the creepy girl," Arc whined.<p>

Shiki remained too busy to respond, cutting through the zombie-like chargers as they swarmed. The ship's crew, no longer human, and not even vampires—though Arc did not voice the discrepancy, she could tell that these were not the living dead. They were more distortions, reflections of this Apostle's own power. Rochus had apparently decided that making more Apostle progeny was not his current priority and mindless weapons were made in the place of scions.

The creatures continued to swarm from all sides, until a swath was pulled back to one side by a tendril of red and then held in place by a crucifixion of thin blades. Shiki took Arc by the hand and pulled her in that direction, and as they passed through a dark hallway, a door shut behind them.

Though his sight was once more sealed behind a curtain of magic, Shiki turned first toward the smaller Caren, and then to Ciel, as if appraising them by sight. He then said the first words he had vocalized since they had arrived at the harbor. "That sucked."

"He's more powerful than I would have thought after all that time sealed away," Ciel said.

"I meant the idiot whose strategy was 'throw more swords at the guy commandeering the last bunch.'"

Banging from the door Ciel had closed behind them sounded—the twisted crewmembers attempting to barge in once again. It was then drowned out by the clanging from above—another rain of phantasmal weapons.

Shiki seemed to appraise the part of the ship they had come into. The cargo hold would have been spacious if not for the crates stacked about. He thought of where they were in relation to the rest of the ship and decided it must be closer to the bow, the direction he and Arc had been toward the stern. "Between the moon phase and his power, I can't actually see anything from him," the boy admitted. "I took a glance and couldn't see anything. I have a feeling they're still there, unlike a True Ancestor at this time, but…" There was nothing else he could say. At this point, his power was sealed. If he truly focused, he felt he could see everything he needed, but…

There was little point in doing this if it meant he died right after.

Little point…

"We're attacking him in his territory. We really should have brought a plan with us." Caren glanced up at the sound of more steel weapons clanging atop the ship's deck. "Though I trust at least one of us would never have stayed on said plan anyway." She gave a shrug.

Arc seemed to consider that. "Brought something with us…brought with us…hmm…"

"But looking at them," Ciel motioned back the way they had come, where the zombie-like crewmembers were still pounding at the door, "we really can't let the ship make landfall now. If his distortion spreads, even without his direct gaze, it would be the same thing as letting a demon out into the world. The terror would spread."

Shiki flipped Nanatsu-Yoru in one hand, hefted the short sword he had taken earlier in his other. "Just maneuver him toward me. Keep him occupied for a second. That's all I need."

Ciel shook her head. "Even your abilities aren't working, Tohno-kun. You said yourself that you can't see him like you need to, I'm assuming without—"

"It isn't _him_ that I need to take." He reached up to loosen the wrappings around his eyes once more. "Just trust me on this."

Ciel sighed. "Then get ready." She raised the pile-bunker back up to her hip and bunched strength back into her legs, ready to spring back upwards.

"And bring me that Faker while you're at it!" Arc said. "If you want something that'll work before he makes landfall, I think this'll make people happy."

"Why does that not comfort me?" Ciel mumbled.

* * *

><p>Now, it was like a game, and while Rochus was not concerned by the immediate actions, he still felt wary of the boy regardless.<p>

Multiples of the same twin blades that the boy had produced spun around them both, moving both erratically and magnetically to and from one another. When Rochus had discerned what the scimitars did and what the boy tried to do—maneuver him into a striking position as the weapons flew back and forth—he had bent some of the weapons to his will, manipulated their purpose, until some no longer called out to their partner and others even repelled their other. It was a strange game, like a mix of othello and chess, until weapons were spinning at both magus and Apostle and neither could entirely predict the next motion.

Though Rochus was unafraid of the damage that could be done by these weapons in particular, his instincts told him not to let the boy place him in a predictable position. A Faker he may be, but imitation Noble Phantasms could still detract from his state—

And though he was far superior in power to even a magus, he was still not fully recovered from his imprisonment.

The sound was sharp and quick, irritating, like taking two separate sounds of nails on a chalkboard and combining them. Rochus glanced to his feet just in time to see the deck plating beneath him give way, and he fell into the ship's main hold through a manhole-shaped cut.

The noise of objects flying through the air surrounded him seemingly from every angle. As he distorted the haze of light from the hole, shapes took form—

Another dozen sacraments struck at his feet the moment he had cast enough light to see by. Rochus glanced their way, ready to command the Black Keys to fail, when he caught a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye. Turning back the other way, he caught sight of a dark red form slithering at him like a pouncing cobra and suddenly his entire head was engulfed in a smooth fabric.

"Hurry!" Ciel shouted.

Rochus distorted the cloth with a glare, tearing the fabric away from his body at once. The red material drifted from his body with a flutter, though he ignored the girl wielding it in favor of turning his attention at the most aggressive of the three.

Just in time to see a short sword flying in his direction, the one the boy in bandages had used. Though he could just as easily sidestep the weapon or let his armored clothing protect him, Rochus could not help but wrest the blade into his control instead, make it his, then turn it on the boy in turn. He twisted the weapon's sovereignty to be under his control, plucking it from the air and into his domain.

Movement caught his eye, and his gaze shot upward to the inverted figure flying over him, a dark fringe covering a loose bandage, and though he could have thought to move away or dominate the incoming weapon—

Somehow, his brain only processed the thought of a concept long-foreign to him.

"_Kyokushi._"

Pale orbs like moonlight and the sudden glint of steel were the last things his eyes set their gaze upon—

His mind, however, settled on the idea of perceiving death.

* * *

><p>The howl echoed through the ship, rebounding against bulkheads and steel plating and all manner of cargo containers and standard transportation equipment lining the main hold. Shiki neatly tumbled over the Apostle's raging form, then had to immediately spring up and twist over his shoulder to avoid being skewered by the sword he had thrown; it swirled up like caught in a breeze and tried to jab him through the heart. His feet found purchase on a steel bin, and he leapt from there, flying almost entirely horizontal, perpendicular to his enemy. He landed on all fours at Caren Ortensia's side, ducking his head when another crate soared his way.<p>

The Apostle swung around violently and the objects he had bent to his will did the same, until he was a maelstrom of spinning blades and boxes, steel plates and iron rivets. His hands covered his face from view, however, though a flow of red gushed from between his fingertips like a bad horror movie.

"Tohno-kun!" Ciel shouted from the other side of the hold; Shiki could only barely make her out between the dim lighting and swirl of activity between them. "Are you alright?!"

"Fine, just—"

The howling stopped, and the Dead Apostle Ancestor turned to face them once more.

* * *

><p>Death had come, yet he was not dead.<p>

"Your eyes perceive death," Rochus said, his voice hoarse.

"Something like that." The voice of the boy sounded from a few meters away.

Rochus shuddered. Though the powers of a vampire strengthened under the full moon—

His eyes were not one of the vampires, but an ability gained in life.

"So, in the end, you still cannot kill me." Rochus growled deep in his throat, words coming out like they tore at his throat. "Your eyes cannot kill what is within the realm of the Ancestors. We are, as you would say, at a stalemate."

"You said you had interest in a True Ancestor," Shiki said. "Then you should learn something about Arc: she hates ties."

Rochus charged the boy. His body, still that of an Apostle, was certainly faster than any mere human could move, and his hearing was such that he could still "see" all those around him.

But then those sacraments of the Church momentarily halted him in place, and though he almost as fast ripped his shadow right from their grasp—the ship was still his distortion, still bent to his will—it was the mere instant the boy and his compatriots needed to scurry through the hole they had made and back out onto the deck of the ship.

Like vermin attempting to flee a doomed vessel.

Rochus demanded that the ship move faster toward land, that anything not bolted down try to crush the rats as they ran.

* * *

><p>The trio escaped as the cacophony grew, the terror of the sundered world contained within the ship readying to be deployed upon the world. As Ciel and Caren dropped down to where Ciel had tethered their boat earlier, Shiki moved to the ship's bow, the pale light of his eyes carefully examining the hull of the ship.<p>

It was not something he could kill in one go. The vessel was no longer a singular entity, a singular purpose of transportation over the seas. Ships usually seemed in his eyes to be an entire whole despite being made up of various components, even "loose" objects like the cargo containers might have been for this ship. Instead, what he saw now resembled the light cast from a spinning prism, constantly wavering from one thing to another, everything broken apart to show the various differences in each individual part—enough to give Shiki a headache even if his Mystic Eyes weren't already killing him.

But he could still affect parts, little pieces, individual distortions…

And as well as he knew Arc, he knew what she was planning. It was devious, in as much as Arc could be devious—

Meaning, it was about as subtle as a nuclear weapon.

Shiki dove over the ship's edge and, as he made for the water, jabbed his knife once into the point he found, destroying that point until it formed an opening no wider than his fist.

* * *

><p>He could see the tiny gap, the place where the murder demon had made an opening.<p>

Shirou Emiya stood atop the dock loading crane that the True Ancestor had dragged him to, waiting for the moment to present itself. "Just destroy the thing," she had told him. "You ought to be able to do that much, right?"

"There were people on board, weren't there?" he had asked.

"Not really. They're long gone now, not human anymore." The roll of her eyes was, though, somehow very human. "I'm not going to explain it to you. I've already had so much trouble getting Shiki over that."

Shirou sighed. He was an ally of justice. The other, Shiki Tohno, was one capable of bringing death.

Yet somehow, the killer had become the one to defend loved ones, while the one who believed in justice was about to take life.

Even if it was the life of one who did evil, and the lives of those already irredeemable by twisted magic—

The Dead Apostle Ancestor had said, _I can distort everything I see._

Shirou knew…his distortions were still greater. They existed beyond what could be seen.

He raised his hands, and two weapons formed within: a longbow in his left hand, a golden light in the other—

A false dream, to accompany the false dream-chaser. It would be far shy of the true weapon, hardly a speck compared to what the real one could have accomplished…

"_May this light reach the king who can never be reached."_

Even if this Apostle Ancestor still had his sight, even if his sight could distort things at the speed of light—

"_Forever distant golden sword—_"

His distortion was still to make what was fake into reality.

"—_Excalibur Image!_"

* * *

><p>The glowing arrow shot right through the opening left on the ship.<p>

For a brief moment, golden light eclipsed the pale white from the moon.

When it cleared, the ship was gone.

* * *

><p>He still existed, just barely.<p>

The damage was not something that could have been called the "Last Phantasm." For one who was undead beneath the moon, it still had not quite destroyed his existence, still could not claim to be a greater mystery.

It was, however, enough to destroy his mobile "fortress."

The man that washed up onto the shore was little more than a writhing figure, vaguely resembling the shape of a person. It was burnt and melting and seemed held together with just enough that a light breeze might make it fall apart.

And beneath the moonlight, a golden-haired princess loomed over it.

"Huh, so you are still alive. Barely."

The Apostle's figure shuddered, clawed at the gravel where water met land. It made a sound, though it no longer resembled a vocalization. It sounded like what a single-celled organism might be called upon to say if given the capacity to communicate.

"But you know, here's the reality: distortions turn in on themselves." Arc cupped her chin in her hands as she crouched over his evaporating form. "Shiki, at least, understands that. He lives and loves life, but death is all he can see. It makes him a distortion, a paradox, one that really gets confused with how things are supposed to be. That Faker, too, seems to get it." A grin. "But you only thought you could twist everything around you, bend everything to your will. It doesn't work like that. Not without twisting yourself first."

She waddled up next to the form. "You wanted to escape the Church and the others of the Twenty-Seven, right? Well, sorry to say, escape really isn't an option." Her hand came up, poised to strike. "This is more and more a human world. Death and justice are something you just have to live beside."

* * *

><p>They met back up some distance away, on a different pier than where they had initially set up. The original was still beneath cargo container debris.<p>

Besides the errant scrapes and bruises, plus half of them now waterlogged, they were in otherwise good shape. Shirou was sweating and looked like he had just run a marathon while Ciel and Shiki both looked like their clothes had an unfortunate encounter with a cheese grater. Caren was still shivering from her near-drowning in the cold sea—

Arc, of course, looked entirely too fine. When the boat pulled up to the dock, the vampire princess flung herself at Shiki, physically leaving the ground as she did so, her arms hooking around his neck and her lips mashing up to his. Shiki hastily caught her in turn, his arms fumbling about for a moment until they decided to hold her body to him.

Ciel made a look of half-disgust, half-envy; a heavy sigh was all that the Burial Agent let fly from her lips, however. She decided there was no point in complaining. After all, they had done her a favor.

Caren eyed the couple briefly, then looked to Shirou. "I suppose you will be requiring such payment as well?"

Shirou stared down at Caren with a dull look. "No."

The white-haired girl's eyes widened. "Then you would require…_more_?"

"No, dammit!" Shirou tried desperately to keep his hand from smacking his face. He hated letting this one get to him. "I just need a bed." He rolled his right arm around, stretching his shoulder. "All that wore me out."

"A bed? How…pedestrian."

"Dunno why anyone is tired," Arc said. "Neither of you did him in at the end. What's the point in coming if you couldn't have beaten him?"

Shirou made to say something, but Shiki said first, "It all worked out in the end though. You weren't bored for at least a few moments, right?"

"Well…"

"It didn't 'work out in the end,'" Shirou said. "People still died. That ship's crew…don't tell me you've forgotten."

"Of course I haven't. Don't tell me you've forgotten that despite all your high-and-mighty talk, you're still the one that did them in."

"It isn't talk," Shirou said. He kept his hands in the pockets of his coat and seemed to be palming something there to hide his agitation. "And it's a better reason to fight than 'my girlfriend is bored and wanted something to do.' Your home life too boring?"

A thin-lipped smirk was the only change in expression that could be seen with the bandages back in place. "That make you feel big in front of your underage girlfriend?"

"Alright, enough!" Ciel shouted over them all. "No killing each other under my watch, got it?!"

Arc made a face, like she was ready to dispute that demand and start another round of arguing, but was halted by the sound of sirens. "Oh, right, big golden boom. We probably called a lot of attention out here…"

The others were already running for their escape.

"Strange humans and their backward morals…"

* * *

><p>End<p>

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><p>AN:<p>

Rochus' power was inspired by the idea of "dominion over things," somewhat like Lelouch's Geass. It's somewhat foreign to a Western mode of thinking, but to the Japanese and many other cultures, all things have a sort of hierarchy of existence: not just humans and animals, but things and objects as well. Medieval Christianity would call it a "universal," and Rochus is in essence a person so warped that, as a Nominalist believer, he could dictate what things are based on how he views them. In Nasuverse, it would be like targeting anything in the world and marking it with a false origin. Which then turns into a sort of Mystic Eye meets Reality Marble. Somewhere between Fujino and Araya.

Excalibur Image from Fate/Extra CCC.

Thanks goes to eddyak and I3uster on the BL forums for listening to some of the ideas and kinks I had to work out for this.


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